At Bank First we're not just bankers, many of us active members within our local school communities. By day, Peter Willcox is a Business Analyst working in our Technology and Business Enablement division. In his spare time, he sits on his local school council board.

How long have you been on your school council?

Thirteen years across Wodonga Middle Years College (7-9) and Wodonga Senior Secondary College (10-12)

Are your kids still at school?

My youngest completed VCE five years ago. However, school councils also have community co-opted members to provide a balanced council of parents, students, teachers, executive and community. For example, apart from myself we have a retired financial planner, an accountant and a La Trobe University lecturer who specialises in educational practices.

Even though your kids have graduated from school you're still on school council. What keeps you there?

School council provides the opportunity to give back to the community and to also interact with government bodies to enhance the education opportunities in Wodonga and its surrounds. WSSC was previously Wodonga High School which I attended in the 1970’s and my Mother taught there in the 1960’s so I have a long association with the school.

Why are grants like TIP important for schools like yours?

Wodonga Senior not only caters for everyday education, we also have four Flexible Learning Centres in Wodonga, Benalla, Seymour and Shepparton for those kids who can’t attend mainstream school campuses for many various reasons.

We also run a special campus, Choices Learning School in Wodonga which provides a transitional educational pathway for disengaged students who have had little to no school attendance, mental health barriers or who come from extremely low academic abilities. In some instances, these students have not set foot into a school for three years and, as a result, the Choices Learning Centre has provided innovative practices to engage the students in positive classroom experiences with the hope they may transition back into mainstream school to finish their education.

The mission statement at the school is to make learning more enjoyable; to promote curiosity, build resilience and create environments that naturally weave life skills into learning by connecting ideas, nurturing creativity and applying knowledge and skills to everyday experiences.

Funding for this campus falls outside of the normal education budgets and we rely upon grants to help acquire learning tools for therapy programs. Bank First provided a grant in 2022 which enabled the school to acquire Lego sets for use in these programs.